Bull's Eye

Over the course of several decades advertising for various American companies and their products has become more targeted toward specific audiences. This targeting is due to various factors such as (but certainly not limited to) a decrease in newspaper and magazine sales, conservation of advertising budgets, and more importantly, the ever-expanding internet.  For this week’s blog, we will see examples of the differences in targeted advertising, and even event sponsoring, through the advertising habits of two major companies; Redbull and Major League Soccer. 

As filmmaker Morgan Spurlock discusses in his TED Talk, “The Greatest TED Talk Ever Sold,” companies have several issues to work with when advertising their product. Spurlock refers to fear, danger, uncertainty, and basically the loss of money as factors that determine when, where, and how companies advertise. Companies are losing half of their advertising budget on parts of the public who have no interest in their product. This is especially true with products that really have more of a specific audience. For example, the Maybelline beauty product company would possibly consider it a waste to advertise their new lip glosses in “Men’s Health” magazine.  The audience for “Men’s Health,” as the title suggests, are largely male who the majority of would more than likely have no interest in purchasing Maybelline products. Not only would a majority of the audience not be interested, but the number of people reading magazines has greatly decreased over the past decade.

    

“The Economist” published an article on June 24, 2004 discussing the slump in advertising and how many companies had started pushing their product more and more online and through sponsoring events.  A big example of a company that has advertised through the sponsoring of events is Redbull.  In 1987, Redbull was sold for the first time in Austria. Founded by Dietrich Mateschetiz, Redbull has significantly expanded and changed its market over the past 26 years. One of the most significant, brilliant, and memorable ways in which Redbull marketed its product early-on to the American public was by targeting college students. Redbull sent young, positive representatives out to college campuses to hand out free cans of Redbull several times a year. Not only did Redbull send representatives who were around the same age as the college students they were targeting, they sent them often, repeating their marketing. However, another big draw to this product was that they also gave away cans for FREE. The tactic was genius; drive around to college campuses in remodeled Mini Coopers covered with the Redbull logo, with a large fake Redbull can attached to the back, and hand out energy drinks to students who had to stay up all night studying.

      

Redbull also targeted groups that, by definition, were energy junkies. Video gamers, athletes (see any and all X-Games advertising…), and even young, hip celebrities who were staying out all night partying on reality shows (see Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, etc). Redbull, in a sense, became the Gatorade of adrenaline junkies, whether it was through sports or technologically related. Every group that Redbull now sponsors deals with high energy, high intensity activities, such as skateboarding, mountain biking, motor racing, and even music festivals. This makes Redbull a great example of targeted advertising, because unlike original advertising tactics, Redbull has pushed their product on a guarantee. 

Years ago, advertising companies put their brands and products in newspapers, magazines, billboards, and other places where everyone could see them. This was great in terms of having a large audience to potentially convert to your product and/or brand. However, advertising companies started to realize they were wasting half their budget on a large audience when a large percentage of this audience did not relate to what they were selling. By targeting a specific group of people who need exactly what your product is said to provide, a company is basically guaranteeing a sold product.  Furthermore, by sponsoring events for groups of people, such as sporting events, the Redbull company is not only advertising their product, but they are creating a market of dependency. Why drink coffee before a bike race when you have free cans of Redbull as far as the eye can see, that offers a higher energy content with more appealing colors on the container? Redbull is targeting groups that specifically require exactly what their product gives. Not only are they targeting these groups, they are also creating whole events and tournaments where Redbull is the only energy source, and it is, in a lot of cases, totally free. 

     

Another enterprise that has recently become very successful in the online market is Major League Soccer. Birmingham, Alabama is home to several accounts for MLS teams such as AC Milan, Barcelona, and FC Bayerrn to name a few.  MLS has discovered that advertising online, specifically on facebook.com has become a huge success because they are able to target specific fan pages that are basically guaranteed purchasers of their product.  The World Soccer shop on Facebook has 1.5 million followers.  This is a specifically targeted audience of fans who are more guaranteed to purchase a product based on their favorite team, etc. Not just because a company is pushing the product in the face of the consumer. The fan is emotionally tied to the product and the team, therefore emotionally drawn to purchasing the product. Much like the energy needs of those who consume Redbull, these soccer fans are drawn to the instant gratification of social media advertising from Major League Soccer pages, whether they are on Facebook, Twitter, etc. A jersey for their favorite team is one click away. Even more important in sports advertising online is post-championship sales. MLS products are pushed on fan pages such as World Soccer Shop on Facebook after important cup games. I spoke with an account manager for MLS in Birmingham who told me her company assigns a certain number of leagues to each account and the manager for that account is responsible for pushing advertising on social media for things such as post-cup win jerseys, to even the newest cleats the players are wearing. This particular manager said there has been a decline in their advertising on television and on radio because it is more cost-beneficial to advertise via social media to specific fan groups who are most likely to buy the product, rather than the whole, general public.

  

Targeting specific audiences via social media has contributed to huge changes in marketing. Social media has led the way for the organization of consumers. Various groups exist online for different likes and hobbies. Digital media has basically brought the mountain to Muhammad in terms of making it incredibly easy for companies to find exactly which groups like their products and, therefore, the companies are able to target those audiences more successfully. As we can see, those companies are becoming even more involved in the groups who consume their product, either by sponsoring events centered on the consumers, or by easing into their social lives via online sites such as Facebook, Google, and other social, heavily trafficked areas on the Internet.